


Respite

by Semira



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Brother Dean, Blood and Injury, Brotherly Love, Caring Dean Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed Winchesters, Episode: s11e14 The Vessel, Flashbacks, Gen, Head Injury, Hell Trauma, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Dean Winchester, Season/Series 11, Worried Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6061915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semira/pseuds/Semira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sam?” Dean reaches out toward him without thinking. </p><p>Sam reacts to his touch like it burns, eyes wide and unfocused as his hands lash out; under his breath, barely audible, Dean hears Sam whispering <em>no; no, please</em>. Something cold twists in his gut as he retreats, pressing himself against the other side of the stairwell and raising his hands in surrender. “Sam, it's me,” he says. “It's Dean.”</p><p>But Sam doesn't hear him. He's muttering and still holding his hands up, and Dean sees a trickle of blood slide down from his hairline before following the contours of his face into the dip under his eye and then down his nose. Sam knocks himself off the step and fumbles down two more before Dean finally hears him breathe. </p><p>“Dean?” he whispers.</p><p><b>In other words...</b> <em>After the events of 11x14, Sam's feeling the effects of what Lucifer did to him but figures Dean has enough on his plate. Things don't work out as he planned, and Dean figures out anyway. <b><span class="u">Needless to say, spoilers abound. Proceed with caution.</span></b></em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Respite

"So, uh," Dean starts. They're on their way back to the bunker, and Sam keeps glancing at him like maybe he's gonna ask how Dean's doing, so he takes the initiative. "How'd you figure that the—" He bites his tongue and reconsiders, “That Cas... wasn't...” He trails off for a moment. A twig cracks under his boot. Sam turns to Dean, looking exhausted and used up, like he's barely holding himself together. “...That he wasn't, uh... _Cas_?” he finishes.

Sam shrugs and says nothing. They continue on in silence for long enough that Dean is pretty sure Sam's not going to say anything, but at least he doesn't look like he's going to ask Dean to talk about his feelings again.

Watching Sam, though, is what makes him notice it: little dips and stumbles, when Sam's stride isn't as long as he expects it to be, when one foot comes down leaden or the other one drags behind him. He sees Sam's eyes slip closed before snapping open again and blinking several times; he hears his brother's breath, labored even though Dean knows it shouldn't be. Sam's skin shines dully with sweat.

“Long day, huh?” Dean says.

A pause, just a couple seconds too long. “Yeah.”

“No sleep last night,” Dean guesses. “Or the night before. The nap on the couch was a lie.”

Another shrug, as good as a signed admission.

“We're not going to get anywhere if you drive yourself into the ground with this, Sam,” Dean says. They're coming up on the bunker, just a few steps to the rusty stairs down to the door. Dean's mind wanders to three nights ago; did he see Sam sleep then? How long has this been going on? How bad is it that Sam can barely walk? He hasn't seen Sam like this since—well, ever, really. Sam held on like a champ even when Lucifer was rattling around in his head.

Thinking and worrying is why he misses the first signs. They hit the stairs, both of them taking the steps quickly. Dean's thinking of following Sam to his bed and making sure he stays there and sleeps when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees it.

One second, Sam's face is scrunched up, hyper-focused, and the next he's just—not. That's the only way Dean can describe it. Sam _isn't_. His eyes are open and wet, but everything goes slack. It all happens in a fraction of a second after that, too fast for Dean to take the extra two steps down and stop it: Sam's eyes slip closed, knees buckling, head cracking against the railing and then the stair as he slides down.

Dean growls out a curse and scrambles down the steps, sliding his hands into Sam's hair, where he can already feel the slickness of blood.

Head wounds always bleed like a bitch, especially with Sam. Dean figures he's got so much going on up in that crazy skull of his that all the blood ends up there and it's just a freakin' gore fest every time he takes a hit. “Damn it, Sam, if I have to carry your heavy ass...” he threatens, knuckling Sam's sternum because if that doesn't wake him up, Dean really will have to drag him inside.

When Sam doesn't respond, Dean sighs, heaving out an uneven breath, and sits Sam up, trying to make sure he's secure on the steps.

Sam's eyes fly open while he's in the middle of it, and Dean reaches out toward him without thinking.

Sam reacts to his touch like it burns, eyes wide and unfocused as his hands lash out. Under his breath, barely audible, Dean hears Sam whispering _no; no, please_. Something cold twists in his gut as he retreats, pressing himself against the other side of the stairwell and raising his hands in surrender. “Sam, it's me,” he says. “It's Dean.”

But Sam doesn't hear him. He's muttering and still holding his hands up, and Dean sees a trickle of blood slide down from his hairline before following the contours of his face into the dip under his eye and then down his nose. Sam knocks himself off the step and fumbles down two more before Dean finally hears him breathe. “Dean?” he whispers.

Dean just nods, not trusting his voice. He doesn't ask if Sam's okay because he doesn't want to hear a lie, and he knows he won't like the truth. “Can you stand?” he finally asks.

Sam really tries. He manages to get on his knees without incident, but when he tries to push up with both legs, they give out.

“Whoa!” Dean yells, diving in to keep Sam's knees from cracking on the stairs. He swings Sam's arm around his shoulder and bears as much weight as he can, breathing out a slow sigh when Sam doesn't flinch away from the contact. Good. He smiles, turns to Sam. “All right, then. Assisted living it is, champ. Sure we have some applesauce inside...”

Sam's scowl doesn't faze him. At least Sam's aware enough to be offended. On the Sam Winchester Coma Scale, _doesn't respond to insults with withering scowl_ is just a step or two above brain-dead.

He gets Sam inside and into a chair in the library, leaving him be just long enough to tear a first aid kit off the wall and a few clean washcloths off the stack in the closet. First order of business: stop Sam from hemorrhaging from his skull.

When he returns, he finds Sam slumped over the table, rivulets of blood slick and dark on his face. He looks mesmerized by the steady drips onto the polished tabletop, as if he's somewhere else. Dean had a hell of a few hours today, but it really hits him, right then, how little he knows about what brought them to where they are.

-oOo-

Sam jerks to wakefulness when Dean pulls a chair up and sits in front of him.

Everything comes to Sam through layers of distance, arriving a second or so too late, just long enough that Dean looks at him like he's broken. He takes a washcloth from a stack on top of an old first aid kit.

“Pressure,” Dean says, holding out the cloth, and Sam absently takes it and presses it to his head. He barely flinches as he pushes hard against the wound. Even the pain comes slow and stops before quite reaching him, like it's not quite _his_.

“You mind telling me what that was about?” Dean says, eyes steady on Sam.

He can't compete with that intensity. He glances down at the table, where more blood has gathered, a random pattern of drops and smears, and says, “I'm really, really tired. Can we just... not talk about this?”

“I'd say yes, but you just _fainted_ on the stairs.”

“And I'm fine now.”

“Try that one when you can stand up on your own, hotshot.”

“Dean, I don't want to, okay? It's not... I don't—” A shudder rolls through him as he recalls it all, and then as he remembers every single moment he's seen Cas or been with him since Hell, and he realizes it was always Lucifer. He shudders, suddenly cold. The light fades and his ears are ringing and—

“Hey!”

There's a hand on his face, a rough voice that he knows (thought he knew; can he really be sure of anyone, of himself?), and he grabs the strong wrist and tries to pull it away, digging his nails in because the very idea of those hands on him again makes him sick.

He hears a hiss of pain, a _Damn it, Sam!_ and then he's back in the chair in the library and he's shaking hard enough that the chair is rocking on its wooden feet. Dean is up out of his chair, a yard away with arms raised in surrender. There's blood under the fingernails of Sam's left hand.

He forces himself to stop shaking, forces a look of disdain onto his face. “I just want to be alone.”

“After what I just saw,” Dean says, eyebrow raised. “Really? I need you... Sam, I need ya to tell me so I can help.”

Sam laughs, wheezing and humorless. He wants to sleep, wants to not be for a while. Wants his body to feel like it's his own again. He wants to forget the agony of having his soul in another's hands, burning up through his body like a blaze. “So... it's all right if you don't wanna talk, but I have to.”

If he makes Dean angry, maybe he'll leave. Sam needs to be alone, in his room, behind the locked door. He needs to be out of _here_ , away from the smell of herbs and blood and the high, sharp note of Grace in the air.

“Sam,” Dean says. “I just... you scared me. I want to help.”

“You can't.” He's so tired. He can barely keep his eyes open, but he knows he won't get any real rest tonight.

“You at least gonna tell me why you _swooned_ on the way in?”

Sam slumps. Better to get it out of the way, maybe. Resistance takes strength he doesn't have. “He... Lucifer.” Sam tries out the name on his tongue. “He tried to kill me.”

“Jesus, Sam!” Dean says. “Where? Are you hurt? What did he do to you?”

And then the sound of Dean's voice does a thing, and Dean's _I'll kill the son of the bitch_ fades out to be replaced with a full-color, surround-sound flashback of it, of Lucifer's hands rooting around in his body, of flames licking him from the inside, and Sam is drifting even farther away.

No. He has to get a hold of himself, can't just keep doing this. He's all right. He's just tired. His head hurts. He's fine. Sam fades back in quickly and with aching clarity to see Dean kneeling in front of him, chair abandoned, murmuring, “Shh, Sam—shit, I'm sorry, _stop_ it...”

He's got his hand pulling on one of Sam's, and when Sam looks down, he sees why: his thumb is digging into the slice on his palm from when he drew the sigil. The wound was hastily patched and not stitched, and it opens easily, blood welling through the makeshift bandage, soaking it in moments.

 _Old trick,_ Sam thinks. _Still effective_. He pulls his thumb away and wipes the blood onto his pant leg.

Dean sighs and sits back. “Something happened with Lucifer.”

Sam wants to make a quip, because yeah, that's pretty damn obvious. He doesn't have the energy. He shrugs, one-shouldered. “We needed to get you back. There was a spell,” he says. “Needed the grace of an archangel, and—” he breathes out a short laugh, “I thought... _Cas_ needed a boost. I told him he could use my soul to try to get the power for—for the spell. To bring you back. Then, _he_...” Sam bites his lip until it hurts and stares at his blood slick palm. He doesn't even want to say the name. How weak. “He said he'd kill me, tell you...” he shrugs. “He'd tell you it was an accident.”

Dean listens, lips flattened into a thin line, but he says nothing.

“Obviously he didn't finish, or I'd be just, uh—” Sam flaps his hands at the walls.

“Your _soul_ , Sam? You were just going to let Lucifer root around in your soul.”

“Cas,” Sam corrects quietly. “Not like he hasn't done it before. And I'm okay now. I was a bit dizzy afterward, but it was fine. It's just taking me a while to settle down.”

“And not sleeping for like a week didn't help.”

Sam doesn't know what he's supposed to say to that.

Silence stretches between them.

Dean sighs. “Uh, I'd make you some coffee, but...” He tries a grin.

Sam tries to respond with the same, but from the look on Dean's face, it must fall flat. “Um.. tea?” he suggests.

Dean snorts. “Girl.” Then he's on his feet. “I'll put water on. Keep pressure on your head, okay? When it stops playing at Niagara we'll maybe get in there with some superglue, huh?”

Sam tries to make himself useful while Dean's out, pulling a bottle of water and the veterinary superglue they shove into all the kits. He takes a second cloth and wets it one-handed, keeping hard pressure on the wound. Sam tries to part his hair around the gash. It's on the right side of his head, close to the front, his hair is matted with blood around it. For all that, it's pretty small. Less than an inch. He's got a nice knot forming on his forehead, too.

He breathes and tries to focus on Dean's shuffling feet and the clatter of pots and pans. His hand is still bleeding. His head throbs. He presses harder to his head, and the sting of it grounds him.

When Dean returns with a mug and a frown, Sam says, “Cas stopped him from finishing it. I think it would have killed me then if he hadn't...”

Dean shudders and puts the cup down. “Hmm,” he says, and disappears again. Dean has put two teabags into the hot water, and the tags are dangerously close to falling into the cup. Sam grabs them out, smearing red into the paper. Gross.

Dean comes back, blankets stacked over his head with a small plastic container on top, and drops them on the other side of the table while Sam watches. “Dean...?”

“Huh?”

“This isn't a situation that calls for blankets.”

“You'll see,” Dean says, and settles into the chair. “Still bleeding up there?” No mention of the blankets. They sit at the other end of the long table like a big, fluffy question mark. Sam kind of likes them. They're a good distraction.

“Mostly stopped.”

“All right, lemme do my magic.” Dean grabs the cloth Sam has already wet with water and finds where Sam has parted his hair around the cut. Sam can hear a smile in the way Dean huffs out a pleased breath. “See? Teamwork. Now we've just gotta shave your head...”

“Don't you dare.”

Dean laughs as he removes the cloth, wipes at the wound a little, and does something that makes Sam hiss in a breath. He grabs the glue, uncapping it and gripping it, ready to apply. His other hand squeezes the edges of the cut together. “Ready?”

“Yup.”

They've gotten pretty good at this. Moments later, he drops it, blows on the exposed skin. “Well,” he says. “Didn't get _too_ much in your hair...”

Sam sighs, and Dean shoves another washcloth into Sam's hand. “Your palm,” he says. “It's dripping, but you might as well keep it. Might need it.”

“My hand?” Sam asks.

Dean drops a rough blanket unceremoniously around Sam's shoulders and a notebook onto the counter. Sam looks at a small but precise drawing, mostly sharp angles.

“Some sort of sigil?”

“The one that kept Lucifer off the ship. You up for helping me do some remodeling?”

-oOo-

They paint the symbol in as many places as they can. Sam does three in his room: two on the door (one with paint, one in his own blood, just in case it makes a difference) and the third on the floor. The repetition helps him calm down, brings him back into himself. By the time he's finished, he's calmed down, and he heads back out to find Dean. The ingredients for the spell have been cleared away, and—Sam bites back a smile—the whole place smells like some absolutely horrific apple pie-scented Febreze Dean got several months ago. No more herbs.

The blankets on the table have friends. There are several containers of takeout (still warm), a few thermoses, and several bags of tea stuffed into an otherwise empty mug, as well as two six-packs of beer.

Dean walks around the corner, somberly wielding a bouquet of spoons and forks. He waggles his eyebrows when he sees Sam.

“What's all this?”

Dean grins. “Just in time! Called it in. You were taking forever in your room, so.... Hear me out. I know you're probably gonna—hey, I dunno... be sad and not get any sleep anyway, so I figured I'd ply you with caffeine and food and we can watch some wrestling, huh?”

Sam snorts. “Wrestling.”

“Yeah! Come on, man. It's been forever. Remember when we were kids? Coke and fried chicken? There's a match tonight, Gunner Lawless against this upstart asshole Shawn Harley. Thought we could watch.”

“Wrestling.”

Dean heaves out a sigh. “Yes, Sam. _Wrestling._ ”

Sam looks down at his hands, smeared with paint and blood. “I need to take a shower.”

“Then take it. I'll set up in your room—”

“Mine?”

“You've got the TV!”

Sam shrugs.

“And then we can watch some musclebound rage machines hit the shit out of each other. You've got like... fifteen minutes.”

Sam nods and walks away. When he strips his clothes off, he throws them away, telling himself it's because of the blood.

He turns the water on high and hot before he steps under the spray. Lucifer's violation left no mark, but Sam scrubs at the places he touched until they burn, and then he rinses the blood out of his hair and from his hands and under his fingernails, even though it's only his. It's _part of it_.

Halfway through his shower, he almost chokes on the mixed aroma of apple pie air freshener and fried chicken, and moments later, Dean beats on the closed door and yells, “C'mon and _get out here_ , Samantha! I'm sure you're pretty enough.”

He washes again just to be safe, and then just stands under the scalding spray for a while.

“Sam! Do I even want to know what you're doing in there?”

He scowls at the wall and turns off the water, toweling off and slipping into pajamas. By the time he steps into his bedroom, Dean has the TV on and the food laid out on desktops and chairs. The extra blankets make his bed look ridiculous, but Dean's already lounging on top of them with a plate piled high with food.

He gestures at the TV. “You do your thing with it. Damn _'smart' TVs_. Tea on the...” he glances around. “Somewhere. Beer on the chair.”

Sam walks barefoot across the floor to the TV.

Dean doesn't mention the three sigils in Sam's room even though they're clear as day, but when he catches Sam looking at them, he mouths _overkill_ right before slapping the other side of the bed.

“Get food and siddown. I want to watch someone _else_ bleed for a change.”

And that's exactly what they do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I needed to write this because, while it was good to see Sam's concern for Dean at the end of the episode, I was disappointed that there was little to no attention to how Sam would feel about what Lucifer did to him and revealed to him. Would anyone at all believe me if I said I meant for this to be short? Words have this awful, tricky way of getting away from me. Many thanks to the awesome Shaindyl for taking a look at this and offering fantastic comments and suggestions! In other news, I've been more active on Tumblr lately, so I've been posting a lot of fics/ficlets/fix-its/episode tags straight to my blog there. If anyone dares to read it, I've created a tag for the Tumblr-only fic [right here](http://semirahrose.tumblr.com/tagged/tumblr-fic).


End file.
